Sunday 25 May 2008

Phil O'Donnell Tribute Match

Along with Tommy I was at the Phil O'Donnell tribute match between Celtic and Motherwell this afternoon. A team made up of Celtic's 1998 title winning side beat a team largely containing Motherwell's 1991 Cup-winning side by 5 goals to 1.

Even with a 60,000 crowd the match was oddly devoid of atmosphere for most of the day. It not being a competitive game of course had much to do with that. Video tributes played for both O'Donnell and Tommy Burns and they elicited a big response from the crowd. So too did the comeback of one Henrik Larsson, although we did worry that his appearance was all too brief as he left the field in the 2nd minute after clashing heads with Chris McCart. Enrico Annoni was another player who received a big welcome from the fans.

It was a nice day out, good weather and a game played in the right spirit. Larsson scored a good goal, as did Darren Jackson with a diving header in the last minute but the only moment of the match that made me go 'oooh,' was when Larsson chipped the ball onto the bar from about 25 yards out midway through the second half.

From my own personal interest, the match featured several former Clydebank players, Stevie Woods, Darren Jackson, Rab McKinnon, Fraser Wishart and Tommy Coyne.

There's a brief match report and a selection of photos on the BBC website. Here's the report featuring the teams and list of rotating substitutes from the Celtic website.

1 comment:

menopausaloldbag (MOB) said...

Hey guys, entertaining site. I'm a Glaswegian living down south so good to hear a wee bit about Glasgow. Re the footie, my cousin is John Collins!